


Fracta Modi

by falter



Category: Death Spells, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 16:30:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2779970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falter/pseuds/falter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fairy tale. Of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fracta Modi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dapatty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty/gifts).



Once upon a time, there was a small, relatively peaceful kingdom filled with relatively peaceful folk. The kingdom was what you'd expect, if you know what sort of story this is: filled with deep woodlands, ribboned with clear rivers, and bounded by the sea to one side and mountains to the other. It had a great capital city grown up around a majestic castle at the foot of the mountains, and a bustling cosmopolitan port at the edge of the sea. And, of course, flourishing towns in lush green valleys, circled in farms and orchards and vineyards. 

Once you've catalogued all those places, though, you might start to notice the spots that don't get descriptions on the map; places that don't have a tavern filled with the rough talk of travelers or busy markets or stables of fine horses or...well, really anything at all interesting. Villages like the one where Frank and his mama live. 

Frank's lived in the village his whole life, and he hates it. Well. Not really. He loves his mama, and the meadow where the sheep graze, and the way the mountains look in the distance when the sun is setting. But the things he loves here, in his home, are not the things he can make a life from. So today Frank leaves to make his way in the world: he rises before first light, laces his stout boots, settles his pack over one shoulder, and sets out on the road through the forest toward the capital. 

The woods are quiet in the gloom; the birds are just waking as the sky lightens, but the road, always quiet, is deserted this early. The walk is long and lonely. Once the sun is high over the treetops he stops to rest, breaking his fast with bread and cheese from his pack, and leaning back for a moment against one of the great trees that line the road. 

That's where mama finds him, fast asleep in the sunshine. Frank's eight years old, and his papa left to be a soldier and seek adventure four years ago, and it isn't fair that he can't go, too. He starts to tell his mama so, but she cries, so Frank doesn't argue when she leads him back home.

**

Papa left when the great family who lived in the manor closed the house and moved away. That changed the fortunes of the village; it still belongs to them, but the school closed and deliveries don't come as often. Many people left when it became clear that the mansion wouldn't open again, not just Frank’s papa, but most of his friends. Frank and his mama stayed. 

Their lives are quiet; their home is small but still snug. Mama takes in mending and spins strong linen thread, and twice every week Frank helps her push a laden cart to the market in the big town in a nearby valley. He learns to watch their stall at the market, and how to bargain for all the things they need to buy for themselves and for their neighbors while she sells her work, and, once he is tall enough to see over the counter at the tavern, how to check for letters from papa. 

There’s a letter today, and once they return home mama cuts the twine away from the packet and unfolds it. Reading it makes her sigh; she sits for a long time with her chin in her hands, looking down at it before she folds it up neatly and puts it in the box above the hearth. Frank looks down at the piece of scrimshaw that had been folded into the letter for him, at the tiny engraving of a boat in a storm, a sailor cast overboard, and frowns. The sea isn't so far away, surely, and the gift probably means papa is stationed near the coast. He looks to his mama where she's sat to finish today's mending in the last of the sunlight. He was going to ask her advice on how to get a good map, but maybe not today. She looks sad, so he moves to sit by her side, instead. She hugs him, tight and sudden, and sets him to sorting through her basket of notions while she works. Perhaps he'll ask her tomorrow.

**

When the next day dawns, though, Frank's limbs are heavy and when he tries to rise to help mama with the fire, he starts to cough, and he cannot stop. He's insensible for days, though he knows his mama's cool work-rough fingertips against his forehead, and her voice speaking sometimes to him, and sometimes to strangers. 

The seasons have turned before Frank is able to leave his bed for any length of time again, and their lives change. Mama holds him closer to home, and they stop traveling to the market. He wishes he could chafe at that, but he grows tired easily. His health isn't dependable; he’s fine for months at a time, then he gets winded walking to the river. Frank spends much of his time reading and exploring on his own, teaching himself to make simple quiet music with the mandore he finds among his papa’s discarded possessions, counseling himself to be content. 

He gives up on his childish plans to find papa. The letters no longer come as they did when he was a child. There's no sense in trying to go to sea to earn his fortune and he won't leave his mama to go to the university at the capital. Not that they could afford it; he knows he could earn enough to keep his place there doing odd jobs but not enough to send home, and he worries. 

When Frank took sick, mama had arranged with the miller to take her goods to town. As the years pass, when he’s well, he goes along. Sales are better that way, and the miller likes the company, besides. It’s a teasing glimpse of the world away from home; Frank hawks his mother's wares from a market stall in the mornings, talking the quality into placing commissions on her behalf. He spends the afternoons buying silks and linens and woolens for her to work with. The miller drinks into the evenings after the market closes, so Frank sits in the tavern listening to tales and talking with travelers, plays his mandore with the musicians who pass through, and drives the miller’s cart home in the dark while the man dozes beside him. It's enough adventure; he’s learning to be content with it.

Mama uses the time she used to spend at the market doing fine, delicate embroidered work to offer for sale; most of it comes back, but sometimes Frank manages to sell them, and he and mama use the copper coins to purchase luxuries - lamp oil and smudged second-hand pamphlets filled with adventure tales and meat for their Sunday supper. 

Their lives go on like that; simple and poor, but happy enough. 

The year Frank turns sixteen, it all begins to change. 

**

The first package is sitting on the doorstep of their little house when Frank goes out to get wood to feed the cookfire. It's large, but soft and not very heavy. "Seamstress" is inked in a heavy hand along the folds of coarse paper wrapping. 

"What's this?" asks mama, when Frank sets it on the table next to the fire, but he has no chance to answer before she's picked it up, humming over the size and raising a brow at the writing on its surface. 

Frank hands her his pocketknife and kisses her cheek as he shrugs. "We'll find out if you open it," he says, and she jostles him back in the direction of the door.

"Fetch the firewood, you, if you want your breakfast." 

When Frank comes back inside, she's spread the contents across the table and moved to the window, reading what looks like a letter in the strong early sunlight. 

"Well?" Frank ducks down to tend the fire, but he rises again when she doesn't reply. "Mama? What's wrong?" 

Her expression is strange, almost fearful, and she looks at him for a moment before raising the hand not holding the letter. There's a gold coin in her palm, shining dully in the morning light.

It's more money than Frank has ever seen. 

** 

Most of the package was a bundle of clothing, with the letter folded around the coin. It’s less a letter than a set of instructions; mama is to construct shirts and trousers, copied from those in the package, but remade in heavy, sturdy cloth. The contents of the package are very fine, or were once, and they spend some time running marveling fingers over the garments before mama leads the process of carefully picking apart the seams to make patterns. It's all brocaded silk and densely embroidered linens, but stained and inexpertly mended. 

Mama weighs the coin in her hand for a long time, looking thoughtful. The next market day they go to town together. They ride there with the miller in his cart, but they take nothing to sell, and carry home bolts of heavy wool and fine sturdy linen, a paper of new steel needles, and a heavy barrel of good lamp oil. When they are done there is nothing left of the gold; mama visited many more vendors than they took packages from, and it isn't until the day is nearly done that he realizes how many debts they had carried, how many she's discharged thanks to a single stranger. 

It takes mama nearly a week of working late into each evening. When she's done, she's fashioned four fine shirts, two pair of trousers, and a padded surcoat. They fold them into a bundle re-using the heavy brown paper, tie it tightly with fresh twine, and, following the instructions, they leave the bundle on their doorstep Sunday morning. It's gone when they get home from church. Two mornings later, Frank finds a folded letter on the step, sealed neatly with wax but grimy and damp at the edges; it simply says "Thank you", and the parchment is folded around two more of the large gold coins. Frank's mama looks stunned. 

"It's too much", she says, and he nods, silent and unwilling to say they shouldn’t accept it. Her eyes are wet, and he knows his are too. What was left from the first coin, after she bought fabric, was enough to pay their debts. This is more than enough to pay their rents for the year twice over. 

**

They sit up late into the night, talking with the two coins between them on the table. Near dawn they work together to lever one of the stones away from the edge of the hearth, and hide one coin underneath. The other, they spend: books for Frank, and a fine atlas of the sort he dreamed about when he was small; ink and pens and paper; more lamps and good oil to light mama's work; beautifully dyed silken thread, wools both woven and felted, and yards of good linen; a large cedar chest to keep the cloth free of vermin and safe from the kitchen. Mama begins to spend the time not taken up with her mending work stitching fine handkerchiefs; she sends them to the city to sell.

Their lives get better. 

They talk, sometimes, about the package - how strange it was, how it changed their lives. It’s lent their lives a little mystery, and they keep it close between them. It feels like a debt to Frank - so much impact on their lives was wrapped up in those coins, and his mama agrees when he speaks his mind about it. Months later they spend an evening at the table again, and Frank's mama writes out a long letter, filling it with all of their gratitude - Frank reads it while the ink dries, then helps to fold a very fine felted coat, made to the measurements from the package, into a bundle. They leave it tied with string, on their doorstep. It's still there at the end of the day, and Frank brings it indoors. Mama sets it out again the next day, and the next. On the fifth day, it disappears. On the seventh day, there's a new letter, folded around yet another coin.

The letter this time is short - curt, even. It doesn’t acknowledge what they’d written, though it’s clearly in response. In it are the instructions for an indoor coat, to be delivered this time rather than set on the doorstep. There’s something strange about the letter, beyond its brevity, and the instructions come with a promise that reads like a warning: if the delivery is made successfully, there will be more work - steady work. But only if they keep it a secret. They mustn't talk about it in town, and they mustn't tell where they are making the deliveries, or take anyone else there. 

Frank's mama frowns when she reads the instructions. "The manor," she says, but won't talk more of it that night. Frank frowns as well; no one lives there, not anymore. The whole village would be talking of it if that had changed. It makes Frank feel nervous, excited and intrigued and a little breathless with the thought of more mystery in their lives.

A week later, she's finished the coat, and they set off together: mama to deliver it, and Frank to guard her. 

**

They walk through the village early in the morning. There are few people out, but they tell those that they see that they are going to gather windfalls in the manor’s neglected orchard. Frank knows the orchard well; it’s something they’ve done before - but he’s never taken the path his mama chooses once they get there. It’s a long-disused lane overtaken by underbrush and storm-felled trees, but its breadth and the set of the ground remain, betraying a lost grandeur. The walk takes them nearly an hour, long enough to make the sight of the manor house almost shocking when they round the last curve, dark and looming in the late summer sunshine. 

There are a great number of dogs sleeping in the shade of the house, but when Frank and his mama approach, they only wake to watch placidly. The manor looks abandoned; the shutters are nailed closed and the grand doors are chained and padlocked, but just as the letter had said there's a heavy wooden chest resting on the courtyard flagstones. Frank lifts the lid to find a coin inside, weighing down a note. They put the coat inside the chest, and stand for a time staring up at the house. It's silent. Frank opens the note - it's a list of goods to purchase and bring back to the manor. 

**

Life settles into a new routine. 

Frank goes on his own to the manor after that. The instructions are clear that he’s to come at any time on the appointed day, so long as he’s gone again by sunset. It’s an easy enough trip even on days he isn’t well. Days he is well, it’s a pleasure, and he spends late morning walking out through the woods and along the stretch of old lane, all cobbles and moss in the sunshine. There's a letter there every time, folded around a new coin. The letters make it clear that once he's purchased what's necessary, the remainder is his to keep. Frank learns to bargain in a whole new way - who to go to for each item on the list, how to spend the least while being sure to purchase the best quality goods, which need a trip to town, which can be found in the village. He worries that the letters will stop, that the new comforts he and his mama are able to afford will disappear, so he dreads the very idea that one of his deliveries will be found wanting and whomever their mysterious patron is will find a different way to acquire what they need. It's never elaborate, just a short list of household goods: grain and flours from the mill, vegetables from the local small holds, cured meats from the butcher, fruits and nuts that sometimes Frank can gather himself in the woods and abandoned orchards around the manor. Sometimes thread or buttons, paper or ink or candles, nails from the smithy. Frank buys a small cart so he won’t be reliant on - or need to answer questions from - the miller, but he doesn't usually need to use it; rather he fills a basket to carry on his back. 

The woods and the path to the manor become familiar, and the manor itself less strange, at least from the outside. 

The assortment of dogs around the house are usually sleeping in the sun, waking to watch him come and go. He never sees another soul there, and they never warn him off. It's strange; they have no master present from all Frank can tell, but they are well-behaved and well-fed to the last of their number, handsome beasts all. He's cautious, but they aren't feral - more like a pack of strays, some friendly, some standoffish. Frank grows fond of them, and they of him, and he sometimes plays with them once they lose their wariness. 

They make up the lack he feels in companionship; the village, small when Frank was a child, grows ever smaller as the manor remains empty. They are still on one of the roads between the mountains and the capital, so people pass through and tradesmen can still sell their goods, but life is better in the shelter of a well-maintained estate. Many families leave, and when the families don't leave, their children do - joining the army, taking apprenticeships elsewhere, marrying away. Frank still thinks of it some days, of taking to the road, seeking adventure. He still wants to, in his heart, but he can't put aside the thought of the grief it would cause his mother, or the life she would have alone in their half-empty village. He tells himself he's content with what he has, venturing to other towns to take her work to market and to bring back commissions and supplies.

He tarries on the walks to and from the manor - he doesn't have other excuses to explore the woods, and there are blackberries to forage and cold fast-running springs to drink from and there's a broad tumbled boulder at the edge of a glade that makes a perfect spot to sprawl with one of the novels he likes to pretend he's too refined to read where anyone else can see. 

**

Two years on, it's become a nice break from the work he does the rest of the time. A childhood peppered with long weeks confined by sickness had left him well-read and in possession of a fine clear hand for copying, and he’d gained a position as assistant underclerk at the village seat. It doesn’t suit his temperament - too many days hunched over a desk trying not to smear ink and squinting in the lamplight leave him feeling confined and trapped - but it’s respectable, and it makes mama proud. He’s never needed more than a few days every week in any case, and then only until the work is done. 

He still spends a day every fortnight walking out to the estate, getting the letter and coin out of the strongbox, then planning out where he'll need to go to get everything the letter asks. It's worth the effort - the coin is always far too much for what's needed, and he's tried returning the remainder to the box, but whomever it is he's working for never accepts it back. It does take some planning because not all the vendors will have enough coin to make change. He also has to choose as his first visit someone who won't cheat him, a lesson he learned years before. 

This time he visits the miller first to get grains, milled both fine and coarse, and the miller takes the gold coin, and gives him change including a chit to use on his next visit, a handful of copper, and flour to trade at his next stop. At the end of the afternoon Frank's got a laden pack, often with sweets and curiosities tucked into the top for their benefactor and for his mama. The second trip is always less leisurely; the shine has worn off the day, though the forest is just as beautiful. He unloads his pack into the strongbox and sits for a moment to write out his own letter on the back of the page from the morning. 

He doesn't know who he's replying to, man or woman, quality or no, but he tries to be friendly. He writes what's newly available in the shops that his employer might like - the confectioner expects to have sugared almonds again soon - and sometimes he ventures a comment on news from the capital or from abroad. His letters are never acknowledged, exactly, but they're definitely read, and it doesn't feel right not to do it. When he's done writing, he blots the ink and tucks the letter in with the packets before locking the box again and making his way home. 

**

With the fine materials and good lamps, Frank’s mama’s needlework grows more and more beautiful; it’s a rare sight now to see her laboring over plain or dull fabrics, and when she does, it’s usually to make the clothes their benefactor occasionally requests. Her work draws steady custom; Frank still takes it to the market, though only weekly, and only on fine days like this one. He nods hello to the smallholders and craftsmen already arranged around the square, sets out samples, and leans back against the wall of one of the buildings that makes the square. It’s early in the day, so the marketers are more interested in grains and cheeses and wine than they are in silks, but he keeps a close eye on the crowds, joking with those who come near enough, striking up conversation with those who linger. 

It’s late in the afternoon and he’s started to pack things away when the lady appears with her retinue. She’s quality, that much is clear from the size of the group that surrounds her, the well-dressed younger lady who asks questions of Frank on her behalf, the snowy white lace of the veil that obscures her identity. Frank lays out all that remains of his mama’s work for her inspection; she takes her time over it all, then finally signals to her assistant, the young woman, and sweeps away, out of the square, all of her retinue in tow.

Or not all of her retinue; the young woman is still there, looking blandly amused when he realizes it and turns back to her. “My lady wishes to commission a number of pieces,” she says. “There is some urgency. I trust that will not present a problem?”

There’s a quip ready on the tip of Frank’s tongue, but he quashes the impulse, and reaches for paper and ink.

**

The commission is challenging but not impossible, though it seems nearly so before they are done. For the next three weeks, Frank’s mama is working from dawn to well past sunset every night stitching tiny flowers, intricate scrollwork, and fanciful animals into fine linens and heavy satins. Frank feels he’s doing little other than assisting her the whole span of days: filling lamps to keep her workspace bright, preparing all their meals, threading needles, and playing quiet songs of the sort she loves on his mandore to make the work less a burden. 

Of course, it isn’t the only thing he’s doing; though he doesn’t leave her to go back to the market in those weeks, he does still go to the manor twice in that time. He writes of it to his benefactor, as he’s thinking of little else. In the first letter, he describes the strange veiled lady and her assistant’s sharp smile, the exacting instructions, and his pride in the beauty of mama’s work; in the second, he tells of his mama’s exhaustion, her determination, his belief in her abilities. 

When it's done and all the work is sent to the client, mama sleeps for days before taking up her regular work again, and Frank feels nearly as exhausted, but with less excuse. He’s neglected his copying work, so while she’s resting he spends the time at the village seat, to keep out from underfoot and to make amends with the other clerks. 

When he ventures out to the manor for the first time after the commission is complete, he’s still tired and off-center enough that the letter he pulls out of the strongbox doesn’t make sense to him. He closes his eyes for a moment, then holds it up again in the sunlight, but it’s unchanged in its strangeness; it is a letter. Not the list of goods that’s been appearing in the box for years, though that is part of it, but a letter, addressed to him, and inquiring after the health of his mama, the state of her success. It’s brief and a little abrupt in its phrasing, which gives it a strange informality for all that it is still polite, like the correspondence between gentlemen that Frank is sometimes asked to transcribe. 

He spends the afternoon thinking about how to respond, while he seeks out the goods requested. Once he’s visited the last vendor, rather than going straight back out to the manor he heads home. Mama is surprised to see him, but pleased, and he makes her tea and takes it to her where she sits in the strong summer sunlight, setting tiny stitches into a pale length of linen. He sits at the table with his own cup, his paper and ink, and begins to write. It feels different writing now than it had before; he had only suspected his words might be read, and now he has proof that the have been. Before it had only been musings; now he takes care to make a proper letter. He writes out amusing stories and news, thanks his benefactor for his interest in mama’s health, tries to keep his curiosity out of the words, though he knows he fails. When he’s done he has five sheets covered in text, and as he folds the letter, it occurs to him that he is perhaps a little lonely. It feels, also, as though he is beginning a correspondence with a character from a novel; a little ridiculous, and a little like adventure. 

**

As the summer progresses, the letters continue. They are still far more succinct than what Frank writes in return, and they offer little in the way of personal information but rather are filled with commentary on the news Frank shares, old political gossip, and, once Frank mentions playing his papa’s mandore with itinerant minstrels and they find common interest, expansive digressions about musical theory and form. 

He does not share the letters with mama.

**

Summer is waning, and Frank is finishing another day at the market and thinking about spending an evening in company at the tavern when he looks up to find the young woman from the rushed commission standing before him, flanked by two guards and a manservant. He can feel his eyes go round with alarm as he greets them, but there’s laughter in her voice when she speaks. “My lady wishes the craftswoman to attend her; she desires more work and would speak in person.” She nods toward the guards. “My men are here to assist you, so that we can depart.”

There’s no way to protest, or to delay, so Frank gives the men instructions and follows the woman out of the market square, her servant clearing their path and leading them to a great house. They don’t go inside, but rather he is directed toward the smallest of three carriages, while she is helped into the largest. It’s a bit of a relief: he’s meant to direct them to the village, and he’s worried for both himself and his mama, but at least he’s in the open air and not shut inside with his betters, unable to take breath without fear of offending them. 

The trip is quick; far faster in the light fancy carriages with their glossy-coated horses than it ever has been using the miller’s well-laden cart. When they arrive, Frank points the driver toward their small house, set at the edge of the village, thankful that for all of the obvious shabbiness of their home, at least it's neat and well-kept. He jumps from the carriage before it's stopped and bursts through the door. 

His mama is standing inside; she's heard them arrive, voices and wheels, the muted sound of hooves against the grassy path. "Visitors - the commission -" is all he manages to get out before she's smoothing her skirts, looking quickly over the neat little room, the clean-swept hearth, her work folded next to her chair. She's flustered, but she draws her shoulders back, raises her chin, and walks out to greet them, uncowed.

They're separated immediately. Mama is handed into the largest of the carriages as half the retinue, led by the young woman, take Frank back into the house. She makes short work of an inspection that Frank has no way to protest; she taps a fingertip over the spines of his books, makes judging sounds at mama's chair, and gestures to Frank when she wants mama's chest of fabrics opened and emptied. Her look is analytical and her manner imperious; if this is the servant, Frank thinks, the lady herself must be more highly positioned than he'd expected. 

It's not long before he's escorted back outside to see mama handed decorously back out of the carriage. She leads him back into the house, and closes the door gently before slumping against it, eyes closed. 

"Mama," Frank starts, worried, but she opens her eyes and straightens again with a tight smile. 

"A duchess, Frank. Oh my stars, I've just been sitting with a duchess." Her voice shakes a little, but she goes on. "The court - the royal court - has seen my work."

"Oh." Frank isn't certain what to say; that cannot be all of it. "They liked it?"

She laughs at that, high and sudden. "They did. I've won the duchess some favor for finding me; I'm to oversee the dauphine's trousseau." She takes a deep breath. "In the capital. In the palace."

The duchess is taking mama with her immediately, and a scant half-hour of packing follows before the carriages depart again, leaving Frank alone in the house. 

They've never been apart before, not truly; Frank had always expected that if they were, he would be the one to leave her behind. She embraces him and they both shed a few tears, but it will only be a month before she returns. Too long for him to leave and keep his position, too long for him to go without visiting the manor, and too short a time to make arrangements for anyone else to fulfill either responsibility. 

The house is very silent, and the village feels very empty, once she's away. He doesn't mention it in his next letter to his benefactor, simply because he doesn't know what to think of it. 

After two weeks mama sends a letter filled with descriptions of the palace, strange foods, the kind people she's met, and how much she misses him. The letter, though, also says she will not come home until the spring - the work is too grand and too delicate for transport, and too large a task to complete before the snow closes the mountain roads. It is barely the end of summer. 

**

He writes back to her, about his pride that she has taken on such a role, and his good wishes, and how much he will miss her. It takes him a few days before he realizes the freedom he's been granted while she's away, and it changes the way he structures his time - he can tarry more, and while he still needs to keep their little household, no one will worry if he returns late or travels further than he has before. He’s no reason to go to the market, as there are no wares to sell. 

He can travel not just to the manor, but also to other towns. He takes leave from his work at the village seat, and spends evenings in taverns in all the towns he can walk to within a day, or find a ride to with one of his copper coins. He sips at ales and asks travelers where they are from, what sights they've seen, what they wish they could see again. He drops pennies into the cups of traveling musicians and asks them how they manage to travel the roads, how they find places to sleep and others to play with. He tells his neighbors in the village that he plans to see the ocean, to meet people from distant lands in the markets of the part. Those who know him become used to his irregular comings and goings, but for all of his talk, he keeps his trips to no more than a day from home.

He doesn't mention his plans to travel to his benefactor; he's unsure of how, exactly, to broach the subject. The necessity of bringing someone new to the manor, of passing along responsibility. Of neither writing nor receiving correspondence. 

He has more than enough stories to fill his letters with. 

**

After the harvest, in November, the weather takes a quick, bitter turn, and Frank is secretly glad that he hadn't ventured from home yet. It's going to be a harsh winter. 

The first snow of the season is early and deep, and Frank begins to worry that he won't be able to get the things that his benefactor wants if the weather gets worse, or deliver anything to the manor once the snows get deep. It's only been a week since the last time he was there, but he cannot stop worrying, and decides he'd best do something about it. 

He spends a long week pushing himself to gather provisions and work ahead, relying on his memory of what's been needed during past winters and hoping that his deviation from the letter will be taken in the spirit intended. His mood is bleak with the shortening days and he misses his mama. His lungs are tight with the cold and he knows he's going to have to mind his health as well; all the more reason to be sure that no harm will come if he can't get to the manor in the coming months. 

Finally, and just in time for his usual manor visit, he feels prepared. He's bought extra of all the heaviest things, of oats and wheat, of salt pork and dried fish and hard cheese, and he loads both his basket and his hand cart, carefully writes out an explanation in his letter, and rises early to take it all to the manor. He's just out of sight of the village when the rain starts, icy and unrelenting, but he presses on. The cart is too heavy for him to go very fast, and while the ground is too cold to get muddy, it does get slippery. He's exhausted and relieved when he rounds the last corner of the lane to the manor. 

There are no dogs out at all this time, which makes Frank's heart sink a little. It would have been nice to see them, not least to sink his fingers into their coats for a little warmth. He unloads everything into the strongbox as quickly as he can and closes it up, then lingers under the eaves. He's tired and sore and shaking with cold despite his exertions, and needs a moment of rest. He jams his hands into his armpits and hunches into himself and leans against the wall, but the wind changes direction and he takes refuge in the doorway itself. Surely the storm will let up in a moment and he'll go home. He banked the fire, though, and he's been away longer than he expected, so he's a bit glum, thinking of his empty house and how it won't be terribly warm either. He's so cold, and he coughs, and sinks down against the door and closes his eyes for a moment.

He falls asleep there, shivering. He wakes up only enough to realize that he has been very stupid, and must be taking ill. He huddles further into his wet coat, coughing until he somehow falls insensible once more. 

It's in his dreams that he knows he's far more ill than he'd realized; ill enough for strange, albeit comforting, fever dreams. In his dream, he opens his eyes to find himself in a bed, stripped of his outer clothes and boots, and bundled into blankets. In his dream the room is grand and large, the bed soft and curtain-draped, and a roaring fire is nearby. 

He needs to wake up. He’s gripped with panic; this is a deeper dream than is safe, asleep in the elements. In the dream, he tries to rise, but dizzy, loses his senses, loses his grip as it all goes dark.

The next time he opens his eyes, it's because he wakes himself with his own coughing - tight and painful. He's still in the room from the dream. He's feverish, he’s certain, but he's not sure this is a dream anymore. He sleeps again.

The next time he wakes he sees the floor is occupied by several hounds - some familiar from outside, some new to him. He’s cheered by their company, and the sure knowledge that he must be inside the manor. 

He drifts for hours, as the room goes dark and brightens again. He finds a covered bowl of broth on a small table next to the bed, still warm enough to sip. There are soft oat cakes as well, and he eats what he can, mindful of the need to restore his strength, though he’s possessed of little appetite.

**

It takes him days before he's recovered enough to rise and dress, and during those days he still has seen nothing but the dogs - several of which he recognizes from outside - and not a single person. It's as though the fire is tended and the food appears by magic. Once he woke and immediately heard the sound of crockery jarring against a surface, as though someone's grip had slipped, the porridge inside still steaming and spilled over the edge of the bowl onto the table. When he sits up there's not a soul around, and no answer when he calls out. There is a strange skittish dog by the bed, looking up at him. When he speaks to it, it runs away. 

His cough remains, but he cannot in good conscience continue to take advantage of the hospitality of someone who remains hidden. Frank has an uncomfortable feeling that he is crowding that person out of their own home, and the idea that it is likely his benefactor, a correspondent who he has begun to think of as a friend, makes it even more disconcerting.

It takes more concentration than it ought to lace his boots and button his coat, but he does, and though his conscience jabs him, he looks into various rooms until he finds one with a desk, paper and ink. He writes a brief, formal letter of thanks, adds an apology for intruding, and sets it on the bed he's been occupying. 

The hallways are mazelike, but eventually he finds the door. Before he opens it, Frank turns back to face the gloom of the hallway. "Thank you," he says, and it comes out quiet and raspy, so he clears his throat and tries again. "I thank you for your hospitality and generosity; I fear I do not know how to repay you. If you are my benefactor, whom I know from letters, well then: I am Frank Iero, and perhaps you will allow me to do you a service in return. Someday." He trails off then, unsure of what else he should say, and feeling not a little foolish to be addressing an empty house, or perhaps a few dogs. 

**

It's later in the evening than Frank had expected; but then, he's lost all track of the days, and afternoon is dark as midnight this late in the year. It's cold, and while the evening is mercifully dry, the wind is sharp and makes his eyes tear up. He stumbles off the lane and into the underbrush twice before he starts to shake in earnest, and when he trips, he's insensible once more before he hits the ground.

** 

He wakes a little at the sensation of strong hands flipping him over, a soft curse cut off mid-breath, and then the cold nudge of a dog's nose against the hand flung out from his body. He flinches and draws his arms close, blinks up at the sky. There's a tugging beneath him; he's still in the woods, butlying on a blanket. When he raises his head to look toward his feet, a great beast of a dog has the edge of the blanket in his teeth, is dragging him slowly back toward the manor. 

Frank closes his eyes again.

**

He's not asleep, exactly, during the time it takes to get back to the manor, but he tries not to pay much attention. The ground is uneven, uncomfortable, and the going is slow. There's been no movement for several minutes, he thinks, when he opens his eyes again to find the hound looking down at him, grizzled muzzle and sharp eyes. It whines, and he raises an unsteady hand to stroke down its chest. "Hey boy. Fetched me for your master?" He laughs a little, even as he starts to cough, and the dog whines again, ducking down to stick its cold nose on his neck, making Frank flinch and twist away to find he's at the very doorway of the manor. 

He crawls through the doorway and curls up on the rug. A moment later, he feels the warm weight of the dog settle along his back.

**

In the morning, he wakes in the bed again as though he had never left it. The letter he had left the day before is propped up on the little table, easy to see from his pillow. "Stay this time." is written in a large, recognizable hand on the back of the page. His benefactor; welcoming enough, he thinks. Not that he has a choice, his thoughts whisper back.

**

His adventure had set his recovery back a great deal, so he is more careful this time. He lingers abed as much as he can stand. Food and drink appear only while he sleeps, and again, he sees no one, though the dogs seem to wander in and out at will. 

Sometimes he hears footsteps, doors opening and closing, faint music - but all only at night. He's confident that means he's alone in the day, aside from the dogs, unless the man living here sleeps whenever the sun is up. 

With the knowledge that no one is listening, Frank starts talking to the dogs. He feels silly about it at first, but he's bored and uncertain and it helps a bit, talking through the strange situation he's found himself in. There's always at least one dog that sits attentive when he speaks, as though it's listening. Oddly, though, never the same beast from one day to the next, and each uglier than the next, in a way that Frank is starting to find both worrisome and endearing. He's always suspected the mangiest curs were the smartest. 

Idly one morning he tells the dog he wishes he had paper and ink; the next morning when he wakes, there's a packet of paper, a jar of ink, and a new pen on the table. It makes him uneasy, and he lights a lamp, though he there's enough light even through the shutters to see the room, and checks the walls for spy holes, the wainscoting for hidden doors. There's nothing, and a tiny, incredibly ugly terrier pushes the door ajar and walks into the room, cocking its head at him as though it's surprised to see him up. 

Frank sighs at his own foolishness, puts out the lamp, lifts the tiny dog up onto the bed, and settles against the headboard to start a letter. 

He writes all day, though much of the time is spent thinking of how best to phrase what he wishes to say. In the end, he tells it all: mama leaving for the capital, his loneliness, how foolish he feels for taking ill, for staying, for trying to leave. 

He falls asleep before the letter's done, but it's gone from the sheets when he wakes again. There's a reply folded neatly on the table. He reads it as he listens to quiet footsteps outside his door, going silent as the sun rises.

**

The letters have returned to a level of brusqueness that they left behind years ago, but as they each write every day, that passes quickly. 

Frank grows stronger again, but he doesn't rush to leave this time. What he can see of the outdoors through the shutters is heavily blanketed in snow, and his heavy coat and scarves are at home, still packed away from the winter before. 

Much of the manor is unoccupied, unheated and cold, though the fire in the room where he sleeps is always crackling in the hearth. A small pack of dogs congregates in the warmth; they take their cues from one of their number. 

Frank still hasn't glimpsed who is letting them in and out of the house; he suspects there's magic afoot, and at first he laughs at himself for the thought. He blames his lingering fever for the fabulism, but once his head is clear, he isn't so certain. Surely there are many things in the world he will never understand, some of them in this very house. Why not call them magic, then? A man he cannot see, and only hears about the house after dark. Food and drink seemingly spirited into his room. The dogs - a dog - constantly watching him, attentively and with an intelligence beyond what he'd expect from an animal. 

Dogs. Perhaps a wandering spirit possessing a different dog each night? It's a kind enough spirit, if that's true; he'd swear that the thoughts behind the eyes of the bedraggled and reeking beast sprawled on the bed right now are the same as those behind the eyes of the tiny terrier from ten days ago, and that they are both the same as the great hound that had dragged him back to the manor weeks ago. Perhaps, truly, they are only a single dog, captain of all the others. The thought makes Frank huff out a laugh, and the dog on the bed gives him an inquiring look that makes him feel even more certain. He reaches out to rub one of the beast's matted ears, and smiles as it leans into the caress. "Captain of the house, you are," says Frank, and the dog sighs. Frank takes that as agreement.

**

The next day, Frank dresses slowly, careful not to overextend himself, and sets off to explore the house. He has mixed feelings about peering into rooms that he has no business in, but his curiosity wins out. An assortment of dogs trail after him down the hallway, and he looks them over before leaning down to address a truly ugly pug. “Good morning, captain,” he says. “Which way to the music room?”

The pug actually looks over its own shoulder, to somewhat comical effect, then looks back at Frank, cocks its head, and runs down the hallway. Frank follows, and sure enough, the door the pug has stopped before opens onto a small salon, lined with cabinets, and hung with instruments. A clavichord stands near the center of the room with a psaltery set nearby, and a spinet is tucked into the corner. Frank enters and runs light fingers over the cabinets. The drawers are filled with pages of transcribed music he has no idea how to read. A gittern and a mandore hang on the wall near a viol. There are other instruments less familiar to Frank, but he lifts the mandore down. It’s a finer instrument than his own, and he tightens the strings until it’s in tune, then plays a while. It’s nice to be doing something other than lying in bed, but it’s difficult to focus, so after an hour he hangs the instrument back on the wall and ushers the dogs back out of the room. 

It’s enough for today. Frank returns to bed, and captain yips until he lifts him up to curl on the pillow beside him. 

Frank wakes again after the sun has set. There’s music coming from down the hallway, quietly played. It takes him a moment to recognize it as the harmony line from the piece he’d been playing earlier. 

**

As Frank begins to feel better, he explores more of the mansion. Nearly all of it is truly closed, with dropcloths over the furniture and the windows sealed, the air stale. The only rooms that truly look like they are in use are the music room and the one Frank is using. 

It takes him two more days to realize why that doesn’t make sense. 

The servants’ quarters, kitchens, scullery: all are closed, sealed up and cold. So where is the food coming from, and where are the things Frank has been bringing kept?

Once he thinks about it, it’s obvious. There are only a few manor outbuildings near enough to the main house to be in use: the stables, the carriage house, the summer kitchen. And the summer kitchen is the only building nearby with the snow melting away around its chimney. 

He dresses again the next morning, early enough that the dogs have yet to appear, puts on his shoes and wraps himself in one of the blankets piled high on the bed. It’s bitter cold when he shuffles his way out the front door, but it’s good to see the sky again, a pale blue expanse still touched with rose in the east. 

Once he’s outside the summer kitchen’s occupancy seems obvious: the snow is trodden down not just at the door, but leading to that door at all angles. Footprints from dogs of all sizes, but also some belonging to a man larger than Frank himself. 

At the door, he pauses, and knocks, though it stands ajar. There’s no answer, and he goes through. After the door, heavy curtains drape the entryway, and beyond them it is warm and smells of bread and roasted meats. It’s a large room, and the usual work tables that would fill a kitchen like this are pushed against the wall, leaving most of the room free. The fire is banked, and there’s a huge kettle swung out into the room that turns out to be full of grain soaking for porridge. There’s a mug and a plate sitting in a washbasin, and a bathing tub to the side, draped with a bath sheet. There’s no one in the building, aside from a few dogs nudging a tureen around the floor. It looks like it had been filled with the sort of mess you’d cook up for hounds: grain porridge, the heels of bread, scraps of meat. 

Frank sits for a moment on the chair in the corner to think. He’s clearly missed the man, though not by much time. The dogs, when they lose interest in the tureen, sniff at his fingers before losing interest in him as well and making their way outdoors. None of them is captain; he’s certain of that. 

He looks around a bit more, and finds the root cellar - full of the last of the foods Frank had brought the day he fell ill, and a clothes chest - filled with the very garments his mama had made and mended over the years. It’s a confirmation, and it sends a quiet thrill through him. This is where he will meet the man who saved his life, who lifted him and his mama up so many years ago. 

There’s a book under the chair; Frank opens it and settles in to wait. 

No one appears, though he stays the whole day. Near sunset, the dogs arrive as a pack, yipping and falling over each other as they come in, but confused and whining when they see Frank. 

Frank swings the kettle of grain and oddments back over the fire, filling the tureens on the floor for the dogs when the porridge is ready, helping himself, finally, to bread and cheese and a mug of strong hot tea. Still no one comes. 

The dogs eat and many settle in to sleep; others leave again, and it’s only when the rest have made their choices and he’s sat back down in the chair to wait that Frank realizes that one of the dogs has been sitting just inside the door, nearly immobile and staring at him since they all arrived. “Hey pup,” he calls to it, and whistles a little between his teeth. It’s an ugly cur, vicious looking, but there’s something…”Captain?”

The dog growls softly at that, and leaves.

**

Frank doesn’t leave the summer kitchen until dawn has come again, and he shuffles back to the main house through the snow, exhausted and dispirited. It’s only chance that he tries to visit the music room rather than going straight to bed, and finds the room locked. 

It takes a moment before he believes it, but every one of the doors he tries is locked. Only the room where he sleeps is still unlocked, and that door is standing open, though Frank knows he closed it when last he left it. 

There’s no one inside. 

Frank’s too tired to puzzle it out; too tired even to undress, and he wraps himself tighter in the blanket and falls asleep slumped atop the rest of the covers.

**

When he wakes next, Frank is thinking a bit more clearly. Perhaps. Clearly, he had overstepped, though again there is a still-warm pot of tea and a covered plate of breakfast on the table next to the bed. His host is a good man; better than Frank, it seems. 

Frank sighs to himself, pours the tea, rubs the sleep from his eyes, and begins to write out an apology for intruding where he did not belong. He does not write any questions about the magic that he has begun to believe grips the house. 

He knows he’s being fanciful; he does know it. But between the letters, the seeming invisibility of his host, and captain, he cannot believe there is anything but a curse afoot. 

**

Things at the manor return to normal over the course of the next two weeks. The letters warm again; it seems his benefactor is as eager to forgive as Frank was to apologize, and three days after he found the music room locked, he wakes to find the mandore that hung on the wall propped carefully in a chair next to the window in his room, and a small stack of books sit beside it.

**

Another week on, and there’s a terrible sound in the night, a storm and creaking branches, high winds - but the day dawns bright and clear, the wind soft and most of the snow washed away in the night’s rain. It’s spring. 

Frank has lost all sense of time at the manor, having no way to tell how long he lay ill, but today the road is passable. His mama will be back soon, and he must get word to her lest she return to an empty house. He thinks for a moment that perhaps he should leave the manor entirely, but he’s oddly loath to go. Whatever he does, he must discuss it with his benefactor; they have become something close kin to friends, for all that they have never met, and Frank does not want to lose that bond. 

Captain is nowhere to be found, and as neither are any of the other dogs about, Frank doesn’t waste time looking for him. He can get to the village and back within two hours, with ten minutes to spend writing a note to mama and putting it into the care of the miller to send the next time he’s at market. Then perhaps captain will be around, or Frank can write a letter proposing a trip for provisions and there will be a response by tomorrow morning. It’s a beautiful day, a fine day for a walk, and Frank feels he could run, well and fit and lighthearted in the sunshine. 

He leaves a note atop the spinet saying he’ll return in a few hours, just in case.

**

He doesn’t return in a few hours. 

As soon as he reaches the village, he knows something’s gone wrong. 

People noticed he was missing. Of course they did. He’s touched and chagrined that he’d assumed they would never notice him disappearing. The miller claps him in a great hug, and tells Frank he’s sorry, but he'd sent word to Frank’s mama, thinking he had gone to the capital. 

His mama fears he’s dead. 

One of the clerks, a man he’s never paid much mind to, volunteers his mare. Frank doesn’t have much of a seat for a horse, never having had occasion to ride, but he takes the offer and rides for town, where he hires a courier and sends a letter to his mama, taking a room in the tavern for the night to wait on her reply. 

In the morning, there’s a carriage, and a guardsman from the palace to assure his quick travel. 

Mama weeps when he gets to her rooms at the base of the palace; she’s thinner than she was, and her eyes look bruised with exhaustion. He holds her, and he weeps as well, and tells her he’s sorry, so sorry: he took ill away from home, he was nursed back to good health. He’s here now, he’s so very sorry. 

**

Frank’s spent a month in the capital with his mama almost before he knows time is passing; he's missed her terribly, and there is so much to see. In the back of his mind, though, he’s unquiet about how he left the manor. Captain and the pack of dogs are hardly his mama, shouldn’t be worried the way she was, but they’ve also gone without new provisions for months now. He argues with himself a little on that score: after all, there was a long stretch of time before Frank ever took anything to the manor, before he and his mama made that first tentative walk down the lane. 

In the end, he sits with his mama and explains it, as best he can. It’s their secret, after all. It has been for years, though he isn’t certain how to tell her properly about the parts he isn’t sure he understands himself. 

She understands despite that. “Oh, Frank,” she says, tugging at his ear a little and smiling. “You need to follow your mystery. It’s time; I’m well and will continue well. Go find your adventure.”

He hesitates, though. Looks down a moment, tries to find a reason he shouldn’t. There isn’t one, though. “I promise to write,” he says. She laughs and cuffs his ear and tells him he had better.

It takes three more days for him to take his leave of the people he’s met at the palace; noble etiquette is a strange and convoluted thing. Finally he climbs into a carriage with a case of new clothes for himself and gifts for everyone in village, and heads home.

Two days after that, he closes their little house, boarding the windows and locking the door, and very early in the morning he shoulders a heavily laden pack and makes his way through the orchard and down the lane to the manor. 

**

As soon as the manor is within sight, Frank knows he’s made a terrible mistake. 

The building itself looks different, though not in any obvious ways - Frank is certain it’s only that he’s seen the manor every two weeks for years that he can recognize the sudden signs of neglect where there were none before. The spring storms have torn shingles from the roof, and they are shattered in the courtyard. The courtyard itself is littered with trash, broken branches and loose stones. A shutter hangs loose from one of the windows; Frank is almost certain it’s the room he slept in. 

Then there are the dogs. The dogs are far fewer than they ever were, and those that are present look hungry and hollow-eyed, wary of him. When he peers into the summer kitchen, he finds it filled with litter as well. The hearth is cold, and he surprises a rat eating the dried and mouldering remains of the dog’s porridge in the great kettle. 

The house, when he enters, is silent and hazy with dust. Even the music room, always cared for, stands open in the gloom, the viol fallen from its hook, the spinet standing open, sheets of music discarded on the floor. 

He goes last to the room he initially woke in, all those months ago, resigned already to finding nothing. It is the room with the broken shutter, and the light the window lets in is bright and almost disturbing in its contrast with the otherwise dead house. 

Frank stands at the window for a time, looking down at the courtyard. Wishing he could have done any of it differently; he can’t quite see how, though. He only knows that he is sorry, again. He’s lost something, here. A piece of magic, a mystery, and perhaps a friend. 

It takes him a while to work open the latch to open the window, but he manages it. He leans out and pulls the shutter closed again, pushes the hook into place, and closes the window once more. It squeaks a little when he locks it, making a funny, high sound. 

A funny, high sound from behind him; not the window at all. A weak whine. 

Frank’s heart is in his throat. There’s a dog lying in the bed - he's sure it's captain. He's rank and mangy, eyes marred by cataracts, drooling. His breathing is uneven, barely raising his ribcage, and Frank doesn’t know what to do. 

He's sorry; he whispers it, over and over again. The note he’d left on the spinet is on the table next to the bed, held down with an empty brandy bottle. The room is chilled, especially now that Frank’s had the window open; it looks like there hasn’t been a fire set in the hearth in a long while. He clears out the cinders and builds a new fire, then sits for a while with captain while the room warms. He goes to the well for clean water, sweeps out the summer kitchen, gets rid of the rotted pottage and starts a new batch, sweeps the hallways, sets the music room to rights. He makes broth and tea, then sets both on a tray and leaves it in the room with captain, hoping that he’s right about the magic, that if he’s not in the room something wil happen. He’s not sure what, exactly, but he’s grown sure that captain and his host are one and the same. He feeds the dogs that have stayed, though they remain wary. 

When he finally returns to the bedroom, the tray is still untouched, and the dog still barely seems alive.

Frank gets into the bed as well, and curls around the thin dog’s body. He falls asleep before sundown, and wakes next to a man, who looks as shocked as he feels. 

**

The man is weak, thin and tired, though neither so thin nor so tired as he had seemed in dog form. Frank helps him to drink the broth and tea, though both have gone cold, and he builds the fire back up until the room is bright and warm. 

They stay quiet, awkward and unsure of each other, but then the other man laughs. “This is strange.” His voice is deep and raspy with disuse. He sets a hand against Frank’s shoulder and pushes gently. “Are you real? Am I finally dead?”

Frank’s so taken aback by that his answer comes out almost a shout. “No!”

The man blinks a moment, and laughs quietly again. “Just checking.” He looks down at his hands, and the silence stretches out again. 

“I -” Frank says, but cuts himself off. “Are you -” He stops again, gathers himself. “I fear we have not been formally introduced.” 

The man smiles, then, clearly amused, and offers a hand to clasp. “We have no one to make our introductions, so I will not stand on ceremony. My name is James Dewees, and this was my family’s house. They are all gone, I am the last; this is my house.”

Dewees tells his story late into the night; at least the parts he knows. His family was cursed, though he isn’t certain why. He suspects a business dealing gone wrong, but he clearly believes there’s nothing to be done about it and no benefit to finding out the reason when he is so intimately occupied with the result. 

As he tells it, it happened when he was still a child: the whole family cursed in a manner that cut them off from people. His mother, he said, had gone half-mad with the shame of it; by day they all changed form, becoming a pack of dogs. By night, they were human again, but only so long as they kept hidden from view. What’s more, their appearance as dogs shifted day to day, and anyone uncursed would see a different beast each time, and each beast they saw would be uglier than the last.

They fled the mansion, Dewees says. He’s not sure how they intended to break the curse, or even if they intended to break it, but he knows that the farther they got from home, the more wild they all became in their dog forms. And one by one, they lost the ability to stay human through the night, turning ever more feral. Dewees had run away in the end, run until he found himself back at the manor, and woke again to human thoughts. He’s remained ever since, lonely but still stubbornly mostly human.

Mostly. 

Denied human contact, he’d soon gathered a pack; dogs follow him home often and if they're still around at sunset when Dewees returns to the manor and goes back to the summer kitchen, he lumbers up off the floor and feeds them while he makes himself breakfast. The dogs, as he tells it, are unbothered by one of their number suddenly becoming far larger and more human, particularly once they’ve seen it happen a few times. On occasion one of them will startle and run, which Dewees shakes his head over: surely they must have reason to be wary. 

The way he talks about it, Frank thinks perhaps Dewees knows the sort of people frightened dogs have encountered; perhaps has encountered some of them himself. 

Dewees goes on, explaining how he worked to stay human; each evening he stokes the fire until the room is warm and he can wash up. Then he dresses; he's gradually replaced all of his original clothes with sturdier versions. He tells the tale then that Frank already knows from the other side: how he had to get new clothes made by sneaking packages of his old clothes to the seamstress' house with a letter and a gold piece for payment - all in dog form. He has an apt turn with a story, making it funny where Frank is certain it wasn’t at the time: how Dewees had needed to wait until a day when he was a big enough dog that he wouldn't drag the package through the dirt. 

He’d needed the sturdier clothes because he spends a chunk of the night, most nights, working on the house. He hasn't been able to keep most of it in repair, but he's braced a beam here or there and replaced some shingles and patched plaster when it’s needed. He also chops and moves firewood under shelter near the house, and refills the big pots of water every day so they're ready for the next night. 

Sometimes, he admits, he lets himself wallow a bit - he’s kept the music room in the very best repair, and there are evenings where he does little other than play music for himself. There are other rooms that are livable: he airs the bedlinens regularly, and sometimes he even lies on the bed for a moment, pretending that he'll sleep there and wake in the morning to live as a man. Last thing before dawn, he banks the fires, locks the main house, and strips, stowing his clothes on a high shelf and sitting on the straw-covered floor waiting for the sunrise.

Every fortnight he folds a coin into a letter and puts it in the strongbox outside the carriage house for the boy who makes the deliveries. For Frank. 

**

They talk through the night. Dewees grows agitated as the sky grows lighter, and Frank is...sympathetic. It’s making him nervous, really, the way the man cannot cease pacing, and Frank himself feels ill-suited to his own skin in turn. It’s a strange feeling; the discomfort of waiting for magic, of waiting for a friend to turn into a dumb beast. 

Dewees stands at the doorway, and rolls his shoulders, twisting a little, looking uncomfortable. Frank can’t help but echo the motion, and something in him gives at the stretch - there’s a release, like everything in him has relaxed and grown sharper at the same time. He turns back toward Dewees again, and in his place is. Him. Dewees still, but as a collection of smells and ideas, motion and energy. 

Everything looks strange, smells vivid and intense, and he runs. He runs not from fear but for the thrill of it, the joy, and he’s outside, feet finding easy purchase in the soft earth. He follows where his nose beckons, and Dewees follows him; he loses the trail, and Dewees takes the lead in turn. The way the leaves twist in the sunlight is endlessly fascinating, the sound of the squirrels overhead in the trees, the scent of the wind, the unending glory of a full out run. The satisfaction in sprawling the warm dirt. 

The dogs circle them, they run as a pack, eventually heading toward a goal that Frank only recognizes as the summer kitchen when they enter. He lies on the cool slates, panting and happy in the dimming light of the evening. At full dark that he turns his head to see Dewees sitting in the corner looking stricken; a man again. Both of them, men again. 

**

It’s not the adventure, or the friendship, that Frank expected. 

**

It takes time, and many careful letters to Frank’s mama, but they really do live happily ever after. They put the manor back into good repair, and Dewees signs the deed over to her. They slowly find people who they can trust to make a household, who don’t mind the strange dogs in the house and pay no attention to people who can never be in a room with them. People who make music often, but only at night and behind closed doors. 

The village begins to flourish again.

The curse, happily or no, continues to expand, though only as they find other people who love them no matter how ugly a dog they appear to be, and the manor is home to a big extended family - many of whom are unable to leave the estate. That changes too, after a few years: the more people are held inside the curse the weaker it becomes, and they are able, eventually, to leave the estate at night but stay human, even in company. 

Of course, that’s when the vampire rumors start. But that's a story for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> I took the "silly, fluffy fun" part of your prompt to heart, and I am as baffled as you are as to how I could hang this story around a fairy tale romance plot and have it still turn out to be gen. \o? 
> 
> Many thanks to my beta for handholding and a lot of good advice. Any errors that remain are the fault of my procrastination. 
> 
> I hope you like it!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Because Werewolves or Something: A Frank/Dewees Podbook Compilation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333789) by [dapatty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty/pseuds/dapatty)




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